


Christmas Carols and Eggnog

by Takada_Saiko



Series: Fallen [31]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Christmas fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 10:37:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: Bobo hears an old Christmas carol that brings up old memories.





	Christmas Carols and Eggnog

 

He'd been trying to get ahold of them all day long. Any of them. Wynonna's little band of followers weren't usually this difficult to find, and even though the talisman worked into one of his rings allowed Bobo passage onto the Homestead these days he didn't often choose to go. Today, though, he was running shy on options. They weren't at Shorty's, weren't at the sheriff's station, so there he was trudging up the pathway through the shin-deep snow drifts and pulling his fur coat just a little closer around him to block the cold wind that was driving the flakes still falling into his face.

There was light inside the house and he could see movement through the thin curtains. Bobo did one last sweep of the area to quadruple check that he hadn't been followed and wasn't being watched before knocking his heavy boots on the first step and making his way to the front door. His hands were so cold that his knuckles actually hurt as he popped them again the wooden door and waited.

Someone shouted from inside and he loosed a long breath, watching it appear in a cloud in front of him as he waited, silently cursing whoever was taking their time to let him freeze on the front porch.

The door opened and Nicole Haught blinked owlishly at him. "Took you long enough. We were going to start without you," she said after a long moment and Bobo's brows drew together.

"'Scuse me?"

"You _did_ get the voicemails Waverly left, right?"

The confusion didn't elevate as he stared at her. Then it clicked. The cellphone that Wynonna had forced on him. He hated the damned things, but she'd been determined that if they were going to work together to take down Clootie that they should be able to get ahold of each other and that it was _time for him to join the rest of them in the twenty-first century_.

"Thing died," he huffed at least. "Ain't worked in a couple days."

"You have to plug it in."

"I know."

"Did you?"

Bobo wasn't quite sure if he was amused or irritated at the ginger cop. It should probably be a good sign that Waverly had finally chosen to love someone with more than half a functioning brain cell, but he really didn't feel like being interrogated over a cell phone. Or admitting that he had no idea where the charger had gotten to.

Nicole finally rolled her eyes and stepped aside as if she was inviting him in. "It means a lot to Waverly that you're here. Just… pretend you got the message and came for her, okay?"

"What message? What the hell are you…." Bobo only had to take one step into the Earp sisters' home to see the reason he'd had so much trouble getting ahold of anyone. The entire house was lit with strings of green, red, and white lights. They lined door frames and the inside of the windows. As he stepped further in he could hear what sounded like people laughing in the kitchen and music from the old piano.

"It's Christmas Eve," Nicole said pointedly. "I swear, if you're here to tell us that Bulshar's attacking or something…"

"No, not that urgent," he said quickly. "I should-"

"Oh no you don't," Nicole snapped, actually reaching out like she was going to take hold of him if he tried to turn tail and run. "Waverly's been trying to get ahold of you all day to invite you. She's been really upset that she couldn't. The least you can do is make an appearance. It's not like you're going to burst into flames over a little Christmas celebration."

Bobo snorted at the redhead's attempted joke and Nicole's lips twitched upward in a very small smile. She really did love his angel. "Fine. For Waverly."

"Good. Come on."

He followed in, finding more Christmas decorations littered throughout the old home. Garland lined the stairs, the normal pillows and blankets were replaced with Christmas-themed ones, and surprisingly delicious-smelling food. He paused for half a beat at the entrance to the kitchen where Wynonna, Holliday, Dolls, and Junior - at this point the nickname had stuck so firmly that the others consistently questioned if Bobo even remembered Jeremy's name - were dancing around each other, John Henry putting out the beginnings of a kitchen fire that Wynonna was denying having started. She turned and locked gazes with him, and if Bobo didn't know better she was happy to see him, if only to distract from the fact that she nearly set the stove on fire. "Bobo Del Rey, nice of you to finally make an appearance."

One off-coloured eyebrow lifted up, but even the distraction from her near disaster wasn't enough to have her keep him there. Wynonna waved him off. "Waverly's in the living room."

"He doesn't charge his phone," Nicole stage whispered, breaking off to the kitchen and Bobo rolled his eyes and continued to the living room to find Waverly sitting with her back to the entrance at an old, beaten up piano.

He had only been inside the Earp family home a small handful of times now, but he couldn't recall a piano being there before. There it sat, though, with Waverly on the bench, her fingers dancing a little clumsily over the keys and she was humming a song that threatened to drag him back to memories of many, many years before with a large fireplace and a family seated around it for light and warmth as his father had read from the scriptures and his mother had led them in carols from the old piano they had brought with them West. As Bobo stood there listening to Waverly pick her way through _O Holy Night_ \- a feat within itself, from what he remembered - he closed his eyes and he could almost see them, almost hear his mother's voice and his brother and sister joining in, the words of the song that had filled their home on the brink of the greatest war that they had thought possible at the time.

Then the music stopped and he was dragged immediately back to the present to find his Angel had turned and was staring at him, her expression a mix of carefully contained excitement and intentional irritation. "Took you long enough."

That pulled a small smile from him. "Nicole said the same," he murmured. "I was… detained. Forgive me?"

The irritation washed away and she shrugged, turning back to her song. "It _is_ Christmas. I guess I should," she answered. "I forget that you know all of these."

He inched just a little closer to the piano. It was the one that had been at Shorty's. Now he recognized it. "Hmm?"

"The hymns. You told me once when I was little that you knew them and I thought it was weird then. Weirder now to hear you sing one. Even when you tried to teach me when I was a kid, I never heard you sing."

Bobo stared at her a long moment, violently shoving at the rising embarrassment. He had been so caught up in the memory that he hadn't realized that he was actually singing the words to the song she'd been playing. He cleared his throat, finding her staring at him curiously. There was so much he'd hidden from her over the years, but now that things were out, now that they were all on the same side…. She was owed a few truths, he supposed, even if they didn't directly pertain to her. " _O Holy Night_ was my mother's favourite."

That brought a smile to his angel's face and she scooted over on the bench. "You remember how to play it? I'm not very good."

"You're better 'n you think," he said gruffly, his gaze flickering to the tablet she had set up on the stand and the notes there to try to work through. As much as she wanted him to, he didn't think he could just sit down with her and resume the song. Even the few moments he'd spent letting the memories trickle in and brought the bad with the good and tainted even the latter.

He mumbled an excuse of a cigarette and left before she could argue, moving past the kitchen with an unnatural quiet that he could manage when he put his mind to it and slipped back out the front door. The wind hit him immediately and he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the heaviness that had settled in his chest as he dug in his pocket for cigarettes and lighter. He moved up to the corner of the house, using it to block the chill and get the thing lit, inhaling deeply. Christmas wasn't exactly celebrated amongst Revenants so it had been years since he had bothered to let the memories trickle back in. Now that they had it felt like a crack in a formly well-constructed dam that threatened to flood. If he'd realized this was what everyone was doing, he would have waited or come up with an excuse as to why he couldn't show. There were few things he wouldn't give his angel when she asked, but as he stood on the porch of the Earp Homestead, cigarette held between trembling fingers, he thought this should have been one thing he withheld.

The door opened and he heard the familiar sound of Waverly's footsteps as she stepped out, wrapped up in her own coat and mittens, a mug of something held in either hand. She moved towards him, extending one mug. "You okay?"

"'Course," he answered gruffly.

"Uh-huh."

He snorted and took the mug, peering in at the milky, steaming liquid inside of it. One good sniff smelled like eggnog. All he could think was that it better be spiked.

Waverly leaned into him, bumping her shoulder against his arm. "I've been pissed at you all day, you know."

"Sorry," he huffed, taking a sip of the eggnog and raising an eyebrow. It was more bourbon than it was eggnog. That was just about right. Leave it to the Earps to make a drink right.

"It's okay," Waverly said softly, leaning back against the house. "I never thought that it might not be your thing. That it might…" She stopped and he wished she'd drop the conversation, but he knew a futile hope when he had it. "You always act like such an ass that sometimes I forget you have this whole past that I don't know much about that hurts you. There are plenty of people that holidays do that to. Wynonna doesn't really like Christmas. It makes her miss Daddy… and Willa. And now Alice, but she puts up with it for me."

"I'm here, aren't I?" Bobo grumbled and his angel laughed.

"That's not what I mean. I'm just saying… you're not alone. Not anymore. Sometimes that helps."

He blinked hard and took another long swig of the burning eggnog. Waverly did the same, leaned in against his shoulder. "And someday, when you're ready, I'd love to hear about your life before the curse. About your mom and little Robert Svane's life. I think there's a lot of him left under all the layers of asshole you try to show everyone."

"Ain't none of him left."

She hummed softly, neither agreeing or disagreeing, but she didn't move. "We can pick a different one when we go back in. Maybe something you don't know. Something newer."

He sighed, the smoke from his cigarette curling out from him, and he swallowed hard. "It was her favourite," he repeated what he'd said inside. "We sang it every Christmas up through the war. My father was killed in it, and it stopped at our house." He flicked the cigarette butt out into the snow. "She cried every time she heard it after that, but it was till her favourite."

"Funny how that works out sometimes," Waverly murmured.

"Yeah."

"Like how Earps keep causing you trouble and you keep coming back to us?"

He looked down at her to see a sly smile and he rolled his eyes. "Can't get rid of you assholes," he grumbled and finished off his drink. "C'mon. It's freezing and if your sister lights something else on fire I plan on giving her hell."

"Else?" Waverly squeaked and Bobo gave her a wolfish grin that made her laugh. She didn't argue going inside, though, and the warmth hit them both as soon as they were through the door. It was more than that, if he were really honest with himself though. It was a sense of…. Belonging. Something he hadn't had in too long now. He'd spent the last century amongst his enemies, waiting for the right time to move for freedom, but here, in the home of Wyatt's descendants and for the first time in longer than he cared to think about, he was starting to feel those carefully constructed walls break down just a little. He might not like them half the time, but against everything his past had taught him, he was starting to trust them bit by bit.

He felt a nudge to his ribs and Waverly was smiling at him. "Merry Christmas, Bobo. I'm glad you came."

"Yeah," he managed, his voice a little rougher than he expected. "Merry Christmas, Angel."

* * *

 

Notes: Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you and yours have a safe and happy holiday through New Years!


End file.
